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Remember the iconic bow-tied canine Mr. Peabody and his bespectacled boy Sherman? Like a whole generation, I grew up watching Peabody and Sherman's weekly adventures on the Rocky and Bullwinkle shows. For those too young to remember or too old to recall, let me give you a Peabody and Sherman primer. Mr. Peabody was the dog genius - think Einstein with paws and a bowtie - and Sherman was his nerdy "pet boy." Each week, they climbed aboard Mr. Peabody's WABAC (pronounced wayback) machine and traveled through time to witness various historic events. Each time-travel transaction produced an eccentric episode, equal parts history, satire and slapstick comedy.
Today I would like for you to join me in my own personal WABAC machine. Sit down, buckle your seatbelt and relax - we are going to set the dials for Electrical Distribution 1991.
Last week I finally got around to cleaning out the storage closet of my office. During this adventure, I rediscovered some notes and a memo from long ago. Here's the story: In fall 1991, I left my role as sales manager with a major industrial control vendor and joined the management team of an electrical distributor. As I sought to build a network of peers in the distributor world, I signed up for a Branch Managers Training course. On the plane back from the course, I jotted off a memo to my co-workers outlining the major points from the course.
I invite you to grade yourself against this nearly two-decade old advice. Think about how things might have been different if only we had followed good advice 20 years back.
My memo was broken into seven sections - each addressing a separate piece of the business.
Warehousing
1991 advice - Track inventory items by number of picks. This allows the most popular items to be placed close to the end of the aisle for faster and easier picking.
Today's reality - Most mid-sized distributors still arrange their inventory by part number. There is very little science used in...